By Veldt and Kopje Part 11

"Remember what I told you to do when the letter comes. After you have returned we will all three go to the summer-house in the garden. Do you understand?"

"Yes," whispered Stella.

"Now, you must attend particularly to what I tell you. When we have been in the summer-house for a few minutes I will stand up and leave; just afterwards I will call to you, and you must follow me at once, without looking after you or picking up anything you may see lying about. Do you understand?"

Stella answered with a hasty nod, and the two then entered the drawing-room.

"What do you say to a walk in the garden under this young lady's guidance?" asked Mrs Wiseman, with an arch glance at Mr Bloxam.

"Certainly--I shall be delighted."

"Very well, I shall leave you to entertain each other. I must now see about doing something for poor Mr Wardley. I feel _so_ sorry on account of his being in trouble just now."

At this moment a knock was heard at the door, and a servant entered with a letter for Stella. She took it with looks of extreme confusion, and, without even asking to be excused, stood up at once, and ran from the room. Mrs Wiseman looked after her with a smile, and then turned a beaming face on Mr Bloxam, who seemed puzzled and uneasy. After a couple of minutes, Stella returned, and Mrs Wiseman then stood up at once.

"Now, Stella, if you have _quite_ finished reading that very interesting letter, we will take Mr Bloxam to the summer-house, where I shall formally hand him over to you to entertain. Come along."

They sauntered down the garden-walk, Mrs Wiseman and Stella walking arm-in-arm in front, and Mr Bloxam, a prey to delighted antic.i.p.ation and vague uneasiness, following closely. Ever since the episode of the letter a sense of insecurity had weighed on him, and he felt like one walking over ground where pitfalls were imminent. They reached the summer-house. It was an arbour covered with trailing Banksia roses, and into the tender gloom of which the light trickled through tangled greenery. They entered; Mrs Wiseman and Stella sat down together on a rustic bench, and Mr Bloxam, after a moment's hesitation, took a seat next to Stella.

"Now," said Mrs Wiseman, with an arch inflection in her voice, "I will leave you two to entertain each other. I have to see about my housekeeping, you know. But I daresay you will not miss me very much."

With that she stood up and walked away in a manner marvellously light and springy for one of her weight. As she disappeared she threw back a nod over her shoulder with what Mr Bloxam took to be a friendly and sympathetic smile.

Poor Stella sat staring rigidly before her, convulsively grasping the woodwork of the rustic seat, and wondering as to what terrifying development things were now about to take. The moment was one of the few in Mr Bloxam's life in which he experienced the sensation of bashfulness. He tried hard to think of some effective way of opening the conversation, but the field of rhetoric which he had a.s.siduously cultivated was struck suddenly with blight, and yielded him never a flower at his need. Stella strained her expectant ears to catch Mrs Wiseman's voice. Mr Bloxam cleared his nervous throat for the third time, and Stella knew, although she could not see them, that his lips were forming to the speech she so much dreaded. Then the longed-for diversion came; a step was heard on the gravelled walk outside, and, after a judiciously loud "Ahem!" Mrs Wiseman appeared in the doorway.

Stella looked up at her with eyes full of helpless appeal. Mr Bloxam was still the prey to bashfulness.

"It is really _too_ tiresome; but I find I must ask you to excuse Stella for just a few minutes, Mr Bloxam. Now, don't be cross; she will be back just now. Mind," shaking her finger at him, "you are not to move out of the summer-house until she returns."

Stella joined Mrs Wiseman at the door and accompanied her to the house.

Mr Bloxam was, as a matter of fact, extremely glad of the interruption, for he felt he could now collect his thoughts, and thus by the time Stella returned he would be in a position to express his pa.s.sion in terms of appropriate eloquence. He closed his eyes and leant back in the rustic seat. The ferment in his bosom was, however, too great to admit of his remaining quiet for long, so he stood up and began to pace to and fro.

But what was that lying on the seat from which Stella had just risen?

It appeared to be a letter which must have fallen out of her pocket as she stood up. It was folded into a square of about two inches, and the writing was evidently that of a man. He would put it into his pocket and return it to her when she came back. Just then the fact of Stella's having received a letter in the drawing-room, and the suspiciously confused manner in which she had thereafter left the apartment, loomed up before his mind in ugly prominence. He had been extremely curious about that letter. Who could it have been from? Perhaps from some fellow-pa.s.senger. Well, she would be his wife to-morrow (rapturous thought), so there could be no objection to his knowing all about her correspondence. After the usual manner of elderly husbands of young wives, he had strong views as to the advantages of absolute confidence between spouses. He would not mind her reading every letter he had written or received during the past twenty years. Well, she would be back in a few minutes, so he must waste no time if he really meant to gratify what was only a reasonable curiosity, Pshaw! it was but a trifle, after all. Why make such a pother about it? He sat down, opened the sheet carefully, so as to be able to refold it in exactly the same manner, and began to read (the doc.u.ment had no date):--

"My Dearest,--I am very, very sorry that I cannot come and see you to-day, but I am hard at work, and I cannot get leave. Please, like a dear little girl, meet me again in the arbour. I will be there to-night at the same hour. Be sure and leave the gate open. It is very cruel of you to insist on my giving up the few letters of yours I have. Don't you remember that you promised to write to me every month as long as you live? Ah! if we could only live through these happy months again!

"Yours, lovingly, D.R.

"P.S.--Don't forget the garden gate."

As Mr Bloxam read, beads of perspiration gathered on his forehead, and the veins of his temples became like knotted cords. He read the incriminating missive two or three times, and on each perusal the revelation seemed to become more and more atrocious. The face of Stella became hateful to him. "D.R." Who was "D.R."? Some fellow on board s.h.i.+p, no doubt. To think that _she_--to whom he had so narrowly escaped being linked for life--was one who could make guilty appointments with a lover just on the verge of her entrance into the holy estate of matrimony with a minister of the Gospel. Why, the very spot where he was sitting was polluted by their guilty caresses! No wonder the abandoned creature had looked perturbed. He would go and denounce her to Mr Wiseman without further delay. Crus.h.i.+ng the letter in his indignant hand, he left the summer-house and hurried up the garden path.

Mr Wiseman, however, he could not find. He felt he must speak to someone. Mr Winterton and Matilda had gone to the sh.o.r.e to gather sh.e.l.ls. Mrs Wiseman was nowhere to be seen. After pausing in the pa.s.sage, he entered the drawing-room, and there found Lavinia deeply engrossed in an improving book. He seized a chair hurriedly, drew it close to her, and sat down.

"Miss Simpson," he said, in a voice broken by excitement, "may I ask you a few questions in the strictest confidence?"

"Certainly, Mr Bloxam," said Lavinia with alacrity.

"Miss Simpson, did you notice anything remarkable in the behaviour of Miss Mason on the voyage?"

"Well, Mr Bloxam," said Lavinia, with an appearance of reluctance, "I should not have said anything about it if you had not asked me the question; but I certainly did notice conduct on Miss Mason's part which I very much disapproved of."

"Might I ask you to be explicit on this point?"

"Well, what both Miss Whitmore and I objected to in Miss Mason's conduct was the way in which she used to--I do not even like to use the word-- but 'flirt'--with one of the officers of the s.h.i.+p. In fact, we thought it our duty to remonstrate with her on the subject; but what we said did no good."

"Might I ask the name of this officer?"

"Certainly. His name was Mr Donald Ramsay."

"Thank you, Miss Simpson."

Mr Bloxam leant back in his chair, the prey to conflicting thoughts and tumultuous emotions. He rapidly reviewed the situation. His house was furnished; he had, on the eve of his departure, addressed a meeting of his congregation and announced that he was about to take upon his shoulders the responsibilities of the married state. A welcome was, he knew, being prepared for his bride. The Sabbath-school children had arranged to present her with an address, which had already been drafted by the schoolmaster of the Mission. The very invitations to a tea-meeting on a large scale had been issued. He could never face the ordeal of returning without a wife. Stella had been conclusively proved to be a vessel of abominable things; Matilda, owing to his foolish precipitancy in surrendering his right of pre-emption, had been annexed by Mr Winterton. Lavinia only remained. He would endow Lavinia with his belated affections.

"Miss Simpson," (he found that now he had not the least difficulty in expressing himself fluently), "it has been made clear to my heart that Providence has ordained that you should be a helpmeet unto me. Do you think you could confidently place your life and happiness in my keeping?"

Lavinia thought she could.

_Five_.

Mrs Wiseman hurried Stella up to the house from the arbour, and took her straight to her bedroom. Stella submitted without the least question.

Mrs Wiseman gently forced her down on the bed, with her face turned to the wall, spread a light counterpane over her, told her in a whisper to lie quite still, patted her affectionately on the shoulder, and left the room. Then she hurried along the pa.s.sage to Lavinia's room, which she found empty. She then went to the drawing-room, and peeped in. There sat Lavinia--so absorbed in the improving book, that she did not even notice the intrusion of her hostess upon her moral researches. Mrs Wiseman then hurried to her own bedroom, locked the door on the inside, and took a seat at a window overlooking the path leading from the house to the arbour. Here she sat, like a portly spider behind a web of white lace curtain, which effectually concealed her from view from the outside.

Before she had waited very long she saw Mr Bloxam hurrying past her to the house. His lips were white, and were pressed firmly together; his eyes glinted with baleful light; thunder lurked among the wrinkles of his brow. She heard his stamping footsteps lead to the study of Mr Wiseman, who, however, had been carefully got rid of for the whole forenoon by a stroke of Machiavellian diplomacy. She trembled with excitement, and felt her heart sink with an anxiety which was not all painful. The deep-laid plot she had woven had been so far successful, and now events had only to develop one stage farther upon their natural course for her efforts to be crowned with complete triumph. Things had reached a most critical stage, and much depended upon whether Mr Bloxam left the home in dudgeon to seek for Mr Wiseman or went into the drawing-room where Lavinia was sitting, engaged in the perfecting of her superior mind. Mrs Wiseman recognised the danger of Mr Bloxam's first seeing her husband, whose ridiculous conscientiousness might possibly lead to complications; but her knowledge of the clerical variety of human nature told her with no uncertain voice that, once in the drawing-room, his doom would be sealed. She heard him falter in the pa.s.sage, and her heart rose to her throat in a lump. Then she heard the sound of his footsteps leading in the desired direction, and just afterwards, the well-known creak caused by the closing of the drawing-room door smote on her delighted ear. She gave a gasping sigh of relief, stood up, and, regardless of the continued stability of the building, executed a ponderous war-dance around the room.

After she had thus relieved her overwrought feelings, Mrs Wiseman opened the door and stepped quietly down the pa.s.sage to the dining-room, where she took her seat within sight of the closed drawing-room door. Here she sat like a fowler watching a net in which valuable prey is just in the act of entangling itself. After a short interval the door opened, and Mr Bloxam emerged with Lavinia leaning on his arm. Lavinia's face wore an expression of discreet satisfaction, but Mr Bloxam looked by no means so rapturous.

Mrs Wiseman advanced towards the couple with a smile in which it would be hard to tell whether amiability or innocence was the more conspicuous.

"Oh, Mr Bloxam," she sweetly said, "Stella asked me to excuse her to you; the poor child felt suddenly faint, and had to go to her room and lie down."

Mr Bloxam regarded her with an intent look of instinctive suspicion, which, however, glanced off abashed from the guilelessness of her mien.

Then he said, in measured and unenthusiastic tone--

"We await your congratulations; Miss Simpson has consented to be my wife."

Mrs Wiseman's felicitations were ardent exceedingly. She even went the length of kissing the coy Lavinia on her chaste lips. Just then she was so delighted at the complete success of her scheme that she would not have minded kissing Mr Bloxam himself. She watched the newly-engaged couple saunter down the garden and disappear into the shrubbery that had veiled the initial transports of Mr Winterton and Matilda. Then she hurried to the room where Stella was lying on her bed a prey to the deepest misery, clasped that dejected damsel to her motherly bosom, and told the good news in disjointed words. Stella broke into a springtide shower of happy tears, and clung to her preserver from the matrimonial toils of Bloxam, the ogre, like a nestling child. Mrs Wiseman, after kissing the girl affectionately, and telling her to remain quietly where she was, left the room. She immediately wrote a note to Mr Wardley, telling him of the blissful turn which events had taken, and recommending him as well to keep out of the way for the present. This note she despatched to the wagons by a servant.

Soon Mr Wiseman, accompanied by Mr Winterton and Matilda, whom he had met on the road home, arrived. They each and all expressed the liveliest astonishment at the news. Mr Wiseman, in particular, looked perturbed, and the looks he bent on the smiling face of his wife were full of pathetic perplexity. Then the couple who formed the subject of discussion arrived from the garden. Lavinia at once darted to her room so as to conceal her blushes, and Mr Bloxam immediately requested the other two gentlemen to accompany him to the study for the purpose of discussing a matter of most serious importance. Matilda hastened to congratulate Lavinia, and Mrs Wiseman, with a certain amount of trepidation noticeable in her mien, went off to prepare for luncheon.

Mrs Wiseman was nervously preparing a salad in the pantry when she received a message requesting her immediate presence in the study.

After the victorious climax to her insidious machinations a reaction had set in, and she now felt distinctly uncomfortable. When she entered the study she found her husband at his desk, with a Rhadamanthine expression on his usually serene face. Mr Winterton was sitting at his left hand, looking like the a.s.sessor of a Nonconformist Holy Office, and Mr Bloxam was standing before the two in the att.i.tude and with the expression as of a stout, middle-aged accusing angel. Before Rhadamanthus was outspread the incriminating letter. A solemn silence reigned in the chamber, and the partially drawn curtain caused an appropriate gloom.

Under the stress of the situation Mrs Wiseman completely regained her self-possession, and her look of guilelessness clothed her like an armour of proof. Mr Winterton arose and politely handed her a chair.

"Louisa," said Mr Wiseman, in a Rhadamanthine tone, "Mr Bloxam has brought a very unpleasant matter to our notice--a matter which, I regret to say, seriously affects the character of one who is our guest, but who is, I fear, not a fit inmate for any Christian household."